Ants are amazing! They’re an essential part of the incredible spectrum of wildlife that make up our grasslands.

The native grasslands Myrmecia nobilis calls home are one of the most threatened habitats in Australia. Just a tiny 0.5% of our grassy meadow wonderlands that once spread from the Yarra River to the South Australian border survive.

With help from a working group of interested naturalists, and then a grant from the Community Bank – Altona and Laverton, we’ve done some research on this little-known animal.

And we’ve just published a report about these cryptic ants, Melbourne’s Grassland Bullant.

Read the report

Understanding more about this ant will help us protect them and our irreplaceable grasslands.

Ant facts

  • Myrmecia nobilis (it doesn’t have an official common name yet) lives in small colonies of about 20 individuals.
  • The queens are flightless, so they can’t easily go far when making a new colony. That’s a huge problem in the fragmented grasslands they call home.
  • They seem to be very rare. We only know of half a dozen sites where they live. And all of those are in Melbourne’s north or west.
  • They’re about 10-14mm long, with yellowish-red mandibles and a partially red back.

Tell us if you see one!

Please contact us if you think you’ve seen one of these ants so we can learn more about them and where they live.

What our report suggests

Myrmecia nobilis are grassland specialists that forage in the leaf litter, especially around the base of grass tussocks, hunting for prey like weevils. They take those back to their nest, where they feed them to their larvae. The larvae produce a nutritious exudate (AKA goo) the adult ants eat.

They like sugar and nectar from flowering plants, but that type of food in grasslands is often sparse. Myrmecia nobilis therefore doesn’t rely on it and can survive in places where more nectar-reliant ants can’t.

These ants like open grasslands with areas of bare soil. This makes for a hot environment, especially in Summer. We suspect that reduces competition from other ant species that can’t take the heat.

So they have an ecological niche: hot open grasslands with few floral resources.

Myrmecia nobilis may well forage over large distances, perhaps up to half a kilometre.

They’ve survived in regularly burnt landscapes. But because fertile queens leave the nest to forage themselves, fire is a real risk to colonies.

Implications for management

What we’ve uncovered is already suggesting we need to think carefully about how we manage the sites we know have the ant. For instance:

  • Fire may pose a risk, especially after the beginning of Autumn rains.
  • Trees nearby to nests may introduce undesirable shade and floral resources and encourage competition from other types of ants.
  • Soil compaction from management vehicles may adversely impact them.
  • Keeping grasslands open through regular biomass management is likely important.

Poaching

A big danger right now is poaching. Ant collecting is surprisingly common, with poaching of wild ant colonies feeding a market for collectors. We don’t think anyone has worked out how to breed them in captivity so poaching wild colonies is the only way of getting this ant.

With poaching damaging wild populations, it’s really important to find out more about these ants and how we can help them.

Poachers of all sorts (ants, orchids, lizards, you name it) use citizen science data to illegally take rare and collectible wildlife for profit. Here’s what you can do to help:

  • If you suspect wildlife poaching incident has occurred, tell the Office of the Conservation Regulator.
  • If you post observations of wildlife likely to be poached to iNaturalist or similar sites, obscure the location so the exact GPS coordinates can’t be seen.
  • Don’t post locations on social media (including photos that still have the GPS metadata attached).

Further research needed

We’ve only scratched the surface. We want to:

  • Better understand foraging behaviour and available nectar resources.
  • Check sites for the presence of other ant species.
  • Investigate how these ants respond to fire and the timing of fire.
  • Research nuptial dispersal and timing, and new colony formation.
  • Test their preferred soil conditions.
  • Do vivarium studies and try to get artificial breeding happening through a zoo or university.
  • Confirm the continued existence of reported populations.
  • Determine the relationship between the ant’s presence and trees.

Looking for a path to protection

We think this ant should be listed as a threatened species. We’ve submitted a request to the Scientific Advisory Committee for listing under Victoria’s main nature laws, the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act. A successful outcome would go a long way towards protecting these ants, raising awareness, and getting further research funding.

 

A big thank you to the Community Bank – Altona and Laverton for their support.